I've been reading through these comments and find it quite interesting because both the driver and Kalanick are correct, but as is usual in these confrontations

I've been reading through these comments and find it quite interesting because both the driver and Kalanick are correct, but as is usual in these confrontations, they weren't communicating properly with each other. On Kalanick's side, he is entirely correct that Uber has to compete in a very competitive market and most of that competition is in price. If Uber didn't compete on price, they would sign their own death warrant. On the driver's side, he took a risk in going for an Uber black car and he probably wasn't fully aware of that risk. He seems justified in feeling upset at how exposed he is to market forces that are outside of his control. Given that, perhaps Uber should better inform drivers of that risk and offer some way that drivers can buffer themselves from that risk. For example, Uber could offer drivers some sort of insurance against rate changes. This would incentivize Uber to be more careful about rate changes since they would pay a penalty if the delta is too big and it would stabilize the rate for drivers -- there are a lot of variables to play with here to make the outcome mutually beneficial.